


Exit Strategy

by clarkeneedsbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarkeneedsbellamy/pseuds/clarkeneedsbellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting into the club is far easier than Clarke had imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exit Strategy

Getting into the club is far easier than Clarke had imagined. 

In fact, it doesn’t require much more than a fake ID (Raven had smirked, assured them that she knew a guy, and followed through without a hitch), a few brief moments of anxiety as the bouncer scanned the perjured plastic (stony faced, looming, and apparently named Lincoln, he’d seemed immediately besotted with Octavia anyway), and the temporary sacrifice of any moral high ground.

Sneaking Octavia out of her house made for much more of a challenge. 

*

“My brother’s being such a dick about this,” Octavia had moaned against a tube of bright red lipstick on their drive to the club.  They’d meant to leave nearly fifteen minutes earlier — and probably would have if Bellamy Blake hadn’t been watching the front door like a Doberman.  It had taken one makeshift rope of sheets, a long climb from Octavia’s second story bedroom window, and a mad sprint to Clarke’s car for her to get away at all.  “Ever since he saw that stupid flier.  What does he care if I go to a concert anyway?  Hell, he even likes the band!”

Clarke’s eyes had lifted to the rear view mirror with a raised brow.  “I think it’s less the concert than the venue.  And the age restriction printed in block letters on that flier.”

Dark hair bouncing against her shoulders, Octavia had jerked a shrug.  “He’s still being a dick.”

(Clarke hadn’t disagreed – but, then, she usually thought that Bellamy Blake was being a total ass.)

*

Any regret over abandoned moral high ground doesn’t survive for more than a few songs.

Clarke feels  _amazing._

Hips moving to meet each screech of the blaring music, Clarke grins at Octavia between sips of the drink that Raven had hoisted into her hand after an extended wait by the packed bar.

Punk rock might not be her usual preference, but it certainly beats whatever function her parents had nearly forced her into attending.  (A flicker of sympathy for Wells twinges through her gut; a long swig from her cup washes it away quickly enough.)

With a guitar solo grinding straight through her skull and the rum in her — heavily skewed — rum and coke rushing warm down her throat, she almost misses the horror that tenses Octavia’s shoulders.

_“Shit.”_

She might have missed the curse as well, had Octavia’s freshly manicured nails not clamped around her arm in a hard tug towards a nearby corner.

“What are you  _doing_?”

Hazel eyes darting past Clarke’s shoulder, Octavia loosens her grip.  Slightly. “Damn it _._ I should have freaking known…”

Clarke jerks her head around to follow Octavia’s gaze.  “What are you—”  Packed as the club may be, it doesn’t take her long to pick a head of wavy brown hair out of the masses.  “Oh.”

Somehow, even clumped among a sweating crowd, Bellamy Blake still manages to look like he owns every square inch of the club and each person teeming inside it.

She gulps a deep breath.

“Clarke, you have to distract him.”

And promptly chokes on it.

“ _What?_ Octavia, no, I can’t – I…  Raven, we need to find Raven.”  If anyone’s going to serve herself up to Bellamy as a diversion, it should at least be the only one among them who will take it for entertainment.  “I’ll come with you, or grab the car, or—”

“Raven disappeared with Finn like an hour ago.”  Somehow managing to squeeze herself closer against the wall, Octavia’s bronze arms cross in a pretzel.  “And if you think I’m leaving early just because Bellamy had to come and track me down, you’re cracked.  It’s crowded as hell in here.  Trust me, if I get to the other side of the room, he won’t find me.  Just give me the chance to.”

Clarke’s head slumps against the wall, working an ache – and likely no small amount of dust – past her hair.  “And exactly how long will ‘giving you a chance to’ take?”

“Hey, which one of us aced math last semester.”

“That’s not—” Her feet tangle as Octavia pushes her back out onto the dance floor, high heels nearly stumbling straight over a pair of combat boots.  “—the same.”

Clarke edges a glare behind her shoulder.  A desperate shrug awaits her. 

She’s going to  _kill_ her.  

For now, Clarke settles for taking a deep breath and working her way over to Bellamy, scrambling for any idea of what on earth she’s going to say to him.

This is a  _terrible_ plan.  Even if past experience hadn’t proven her an abysmal liar, the odds of him believing that she came here without Octavia would be slim.  To say the least.

Clarke can pick out the exact moment he catches sight of her.  Partly because his dark eyes jerk from the stage to pin firm against her face, his body angles itself towards hers, and his fingers curl around her arm.  Mostly because this is all preceded by the owner of the boot she’d knocked against a second before retaliating with a strategic step that sends her – and her drink – lurching against Bellamy’s chest.

Mostly empty, her cup jabs against the cotton of his shirt. 

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she murmurs, blood pooling warm beneath her cheeks as she wrenches herself an inch of space.

Bellamy barely seems to hear her, forehead creasing with almost as much incredulity as his raking glance.  “ _Clarke?”_

She clenches back a cringe, forces a smile, and straightens her posture.   “Bellamy.  Wow.  I-I did not expect to see you here.”

Partial truths.  As long as she sticks to partial truths, she might just survive this.

“Really.”  He crosses his arms in an eerie mirror of his sister, and she’s no longer certain she’ll survive this sentence, let alone a conversation.  “See, I could say the same to you – seeing as you’re still in high school, damn well not twenty-one, and… hell, princess, since when do you sneak into clubs?”

Biting down on her lip, Clarke swallows the automatic impulse to remind him that she’s hardly a child anymore. It’s not as though he’s entirely out of line; she might be only a semester away from graduating, but that doesn’t change the fact that she still has several years to go yet before her first legal drink.

Within the span of a second, the lines of his face go rigid and she loses the chance to protest anyway.

“Octavia.  Octavia got you here.”  His eyes dart to run a brief scan of his periphery before snapping back to hers.  “Where is she?”

Clarke blinks at the grudging surprise in his voice.  It’s almost as though he’d had no idea his sister was here at all – which would mean, not only that her ‘distraction’ is more disaster than help, but that he’d come for himself. 

If she probes her memory, she can summon flashes of Bellamy Blake grinning and playing video games and sneaking girls out of the house when he thought she and Octavia weren’t looking.  As flashes go, they’re hazy.  Since he moved back from college a year before, since his parents died, Clarke isn’t sure she can name a time when he hasn’t been either working or worried over Octavia.

The strain on his face now is the norm.  The fact that he’d allowed himself to relax at all is the aberration. 

When she shakes herself back out of her head, he’s still staring at her and she still hasn’t spoken.  Grounding a curse silent between her teeth, Clarke lowers her hands to her hips.  “You wouldn’t let her come.  Remember?”

Bellamy slants his head.  “And you expect me to believe you got in on your own.”

“No.  I expect you to believe that I came with Raven, and that Octavia is furious that she’s not with us.”

He doesn’t blink.  “Or I could believe that Reyes got the three of you in here.”

Clarke shrugs.  “Believe what you want.  I didn’t come here so my best friend’s older brother could interrogate me.”  Her fingers twine tight around the sweating surface of her cup.

Raising an eyebrow, Bellamy cocks his head.  “And why did you come, Clarke? If Octavia isn’t here.  Suddenly a die hard punk fan?”

“Why did you come?” she tilts her head.  “If you’re not looking for Octavia.”

His eyebrows remain arched.

Darting her tongue along the length of her lower lip to reclaim any squandered rum, she rolls her eyes in a weak effort to search the area for any sign of dark hair, a deep red tank top, and skin-tight denim.  Her breath goes easier.  Nothing.  Granted, that might not mean much – but if she knows Octavia, she wouldn’t have wasted any time before slipping away among the crowd.  “Like I said.  I don’t owe you an interrogation.” 

She’s about to follow his sister’s example and disappear into the darkness and clamor of the club when Bellamy’s fingers catch the curve of her wrist. 

Raised chin and tight lips a study in exasperation, Clarke chisels her gaze into a glare. 

“You’re sure Octavia is fine?”

The blades in her eyes soften slightly.  “Yeah.”

“Good.”  He jerks a nod.  “Otherwise, you and me are going to have problems.”

 “Right.  As opposed to how close we are now.”

The corners of his mouth rise in a smirk.  She turns away, and with better luck, that would have been the last she’d seen of his face for the night.

Less than two steps away, a pair of clammy hands wrap tight around her hips and a beer-soaked breath attacks her ear.  “Wanna dance, sweetheart?”

Clarke jerks against the heavily tattooed cage of his arms – unfortunately, he seems to take her struggle as nothing more than a surrender to the rhythm of the song.  “Not particularly.”  Driving her heel down hard against his instep, she registers a surprised grunt and a sudden modicum of space all at once. 

The realization that said space grew from Bellamy yanking her firm behind him comes a second later. 

“Touch her again, and you answer to me.”  His voice is almost as hard as Clarke’s cheeks are warm.  “Got it?”

Her face only flushes brighter when she gets a full look at the man’s face.  He’s not beefy or buff like she’d imagined, but spindly and slim, not to mention a solid few inches shorter than Bellamy. 

Eyes widening, the bleach haired boy eases his hands up in surrender.  “Hey, man, point taken.  I didn’t realize she was with someone.”

Clarke opens her mouth to snap that she’s not  _with someone_ , only for a squeeze of Bellamy’s hand to prompt some level of logic back to her lips.  There’s hardly reason to spell out her availability — even if refraining requires her to relax against the hard plane of Bellamy’s back momentarily.

Her cheeks remain hot and pink, even once her dance partner’s attention has moved elsewhere.  “I could have handled that.”  

“I don’t doubt it.”  He jerks his chin towards the retreating figure – the retreating,  _limping_ figure.  “Nice work.”

Clarke spares a glare down at her shoes, hiding a small smile beneath the curtain of her hair.  “These heels had to help with something other than cutting off my circulation eventually.”

He looks down at her footwear with a smirk that fades for each inch his eyes climb back up the exposed span of her legs.  Clarke knocks her knees together in a senseless burst of tension.  If it were anyone else, she’d think his stare lingering.  Raking, even.  That he saw another use for her heels than torture or self-defense.

Her kneecaps work themselves loose.  But it’s not anyone else, it’s Bellamy, and that would be ridiculous.

(She’d  _really_ thought she had gotten over her schoolgirl crush and any wishful thinking it might have provoked years ago.)

When Clarke next forces herself to look at him, his eyes aren’t anywhere near her legs; it’s easiest to believe they never were.

“Come on, princess,” he says, turning in the direction of the bar.  “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Oh, I already—” she remembers the current state of her rum and coke too late.  The excuse flounders and perishes on her lips. 

His own mouth curves, shoulders shaking with something that looks suspiciously like a snigger.  “Relax.  As far the bartender’s concerned, you’re twenty-one tonight.”

Skepticism propels Clarke into step with him.  He seems to read the doubt stretching at her brow easily enough.

“You look like you could use one.”  Flagging the bartender down, his mouth conspires with his shoulders in a shrug.  “Besides, you’re not my sister, Clarke.  Not my responsibility.”

The words should sound cold.  Clarke is half-convinced they’re they nicest thing he’s ever said to her.

“No.”  For now, she’ll stop groping for exit strategies.  “I’m not.”

 


End file.
